In computer networks, a plurality of network stations are interconnected via a communications medium. For example, Ethernet is a commonly used local area network scheme in which multiple stations are connected to a single shared serial data path. These stations often communicate with a switch located between the shared data path and the stations connected to that path. Typically, the switch controls the communication of data packets on the network.
The network switch includes switching logic for receiving and forwarding frames to the appropriate destinations. One arrangement for generating frame forwarding decisions uses a direct addressing scheme, where the network switch accesses a fixed address table storing switching logic to generate a frame forwarding decision. However, these direct addressing arrangements may not support data transmissions from stations utilizing virtual local area network (VLAN) tagging as well as transmissions from stations that do not utilize VLAN tagging.
The use of VLANs facilitates the transmission of data to multiple stations by creating workgroups of users who may be physically separated from each other. As the number of stations in the network increases, the number of VLANs normally increases. In many prior art systems, increasing the number of VLANs requires extensive changes to the hardware/software of the network switch.